'Two major problem contracts': Oilers doing well with salary cap, but not perfect

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This in from the Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn, his annual ranking of how much bang for their puck that NHL teams get from their salary cap space, with the Edmonton Oilers ranked eighth overall in the NHL, and given an overall A- grade.

Luszczyszyn projects a players statistical performance over the term of his contract, then compares that tpo his average annual salary. In the end, he comes up with a dollar figure on how much a player is overpaid or underpaid over the term of his deal.

Tops on the Oilers is Leon Draisaitl, who Luszczyszyn estimates has a new contract with a $35.1 million underpay, about $4.4 million per year. Next best is Zach Hyman, underpaid by about $5.1 million per year for the next three years.

On the downside, Darnell Nurse is overpaid $2.8 million per year over the next five years, with Trent Frederic overpaid $1.9 million per year over the next eight.

Said Luszczyszyn: “No team has more A-grade deals than the Oilers, who have six belonging to their top three forwards (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman) and their top three defensemen (Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm and Jake Walman). Add Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to the mix and Edmonton is getting tremendous bang for its buck from the core…

“There are two reasons the Oilers don’t rank higher despite that. The first is two major problem contracts in Darnell Nurse and Trent Frederic, both of which create a lot of negative long-term value that digs into the team’s total surplus. The other is the lack of term for some of their core guys. Compared to Carolina, Florida and Tampa Bay, the Oilers have significantly less money locked up in their most important players.”

My take

1. Draisaitl’s contract represents a massive hometown discount for the Oilers. He could have got much more if he’d gone onto the open market. If Connor McDavid does the same, Edmonton will be in position to win the Stanley Cup for many years to come.

2. Luszczyszyn has Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as good-to-great deals for the Oilers, but one word of warning: NHL players can fall off fast in their 30s. In the regular season, some feared that RNH had hit the wall and was starting to fade fast, but he then played his best hockey as an NHLer in the 2025 playoffs.

As for Hyman, he’s now trying to come back from a serious wrist injury after also played the best hockey of his career in the 2025 playoffs. All that said, both RNH and Hyman are  dedicated players, so if anyone can keep it going into their mid-30s, it’s those two.

3. I’ve written at length in recent weeks about the Frederic contract. His value as a player took a huge hit this year because of injury.

The injury is, in large part, why he played such mediocre and non-impactful hockey in the playoffs. He’s being paid so much for so long now because a) he was a much better player in previous seasons, b) he’s only 27 so there’s every hope he’ll bounce back from injury and c) he brings to the Oilers some toughness and ferocity this team desperately needs, having lost key power forwards Evander Kane and Dylan Holloway in the past two seasons.

I see Frederic’s contract as OK but I won’t argue with Luszczyszyn’s skepticism.

4. As for Nurse, he had a great regular season in 2024.-25. He played the best two-way hockey of his career. I’m not sure that he was “$9.3 million per year” good, but he was damn good. I’ve got no quibble about his contract based on his regular season play.

The problem with Nurse is that his play has cratered in successive playoff seasons. He’s been a major liability to the team in the playoffs. Little wonder that Elliotte Friedman reported that the Oilers asked if Nurse would move his no-movement clause this summer in order to explore a trade.

But there’s no need to trade Nurse if he can translate his steady and strong regular season play into the playoffs. I suspect it’s mostly an issue of Nurse putting too much pressure on himself and trying to constantly do too much in the playoffs, that and the superior competition of the playoffs, which translates into d-men having less time and space.

In other words, I think the issue with Nurse has a solution. He’s got to figure out a way with his coaches, on how to better handle playoff pressure. If he does so, he’ll earn his keep salary cap-wise and quiet his many critics.

At the Cult of Hockey

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